Jobs for this week

That shed is lovely!
Our council tip has decided that we cannot take things out of it [except compost], or buy them. Anything they decide is worth anything they are going to auction - they've even installed cameras so that the chaps who work there can't let you have anything on the side...
Have they gone mad?
Deprived of my favourite 'shop'

 

Liz - thats ridiculous - especially the cameras. My tip also told me that items were to be auctioned. As they couldn't charge, they said take it for free. I really cannot see them auctioning all the silly little items that individuals will recycle - two old bricks, and a piece of wood with a nail through it.

 

So he lays flagstones too, Blackthorn..... - definitely a useful bloke to have around! Have to admit, Mr D has done a heck of a lot round here out in the garden as well as all the indor stuff, making a workshop out of the roof space in the enormous garage, building a staircase to get into it, installing water and electricity to the greenhouse, building the picket fence, putting up two greenhouses, digging a pond - and a few other bits and pieces....

 

Well your bloke sounds a bit useful too Dendy. What would we do without them!
The only thing I can't get him to do is digging.

On the council tip note, our local has of last Thursday now been taken over by a private company who has stopped the re-sale of anything, items deemed saleable now all have to go to 2 central depots in Cornwall, the nearest 25 miles away. I am going to miss it dreadfully. But the saddest bit is that as PeterS says, they aren't going to bother with the bits of wood and odd brick - so they will now go to landfil.

 

You will have to make more use of freecycle!!
Our tip is the same, you can put what you like in it, but cannot take anything away with you.
Freecycle is our saviour, i put everything on it that i don't want. In return I have had loads of flagstones and garden stuff that has been well used and still is.

 

I haven't yet tried Freecycle but shall give it a go - thanks for that badsal.

 

What is free cycle ,???

 

Freecycle is a world wide group where members can advertise unwanted things for others to collect, and also advertise for something they need. The intention is to avoid so many things going to landfill. I have seen everything from cars to scrap timber offered, and my guineapigs came from there, although live creatures are not normally allowed!
http://www.freecycle.org/display.php?region=United%20Kingdom
See if there's a group near you!

 

Jobs for this week are done by me!

I've toiled and massacred and pruned and clipped and uprooted and raked and hoed and there are now at least four / six wheelbarrows (they are HUGE here, builders barrows) for t'other half to cart up the 200 metre lane but it's full of potholes and waterholes so he can't get up there so heaven knows when it will be removed from in front of the car !!! ???

But all is done and the rains are setting in, which we don't mind as long as our house is not flooded (the Baffa and shed is) because we desperately need the rain for next summer.

 

It that time of year again.

Picking up leaves.

Don't waste ernergy,

BE GREEN.

Pick the leaves up with two pieces of plywood or other board. Size around 25cm x 30-40cm (and save money on gizmo's as well).

 

Well said Larkshall. As for those noisy air blowing leaf thingies!! What is the point of them?

 

...or spread them over the lawn and pick them all up with the lawnmower. Leaves are chopped and mixed with grass clippings for an enriched leafmould that breaks down quicker.

 

My task this week is the rebuilding of the pergola that we demolished last week. The one that was there when we came to this house 15 years ago had an ivy that was so entwined that it was impossible to do any maintainance on the woodwork so it rotted.

I replaced it 12 years ago with one built from recycled timber and planted it with 4 Humulus Lupulus 'Aureus' and this has been a great success both in decorative apperance but also because it dies down all winter thus allowing maintainance.

This year the decision was made that the uprights, and some other timbers, needed replacing so I have gone for pressure treated timber this time as I have no wish to replace it again in the forseeable future. The usable recycled timber from the last one is being --recycled yet again -- and is earmarked for other garden projects.

The pergola this past summer.

 

That pergola looks just lovely platty

I have spent the last week enlarging all of the herbacious borders by between 2 ft - 4ft all round, lots of digging and the lawn is shrinking.

 

Do you all pick up all your fallen leaves? or just the ones on the lawn.

I personally think it's okay to leave some on the borders for the worms to drag down.

What does everyone else do? :D